Not that this can come as a lot of a shock, however England’s gamers are good eaters. Part of the remit of being sufficiently big to play Test rugby is that there must be lots of consumption, which is now fastidiously monitored by England’s efficiency nutritionist Dr James Morehen, who additionally works with Bristol Bears.
Morehen’s remit consists of arising with meal plans alongside England Rugby’s head chef, Thomas Kirby, to provide England’s gamers what they want in an effort to carry out. Kirby, by way of a quantity of informative movies launched thus far this 12 months, has revealed simply how a lot meals England get by way of whereas in camp throughout one week; 100 kilos of berries and 200 kilos of bananas, as much as 150 kilos of potatoes and 25 kilograms of pasta, with gamers capable of construct their very own pasta dish utilizing a range of sauces the night time earlier than a sport. Not forgetting 40 to 50 litres of milk, going into porridge, coffees, smoothies and shakes.
Across a complete Six Nations or summer season tour window, between seven to eight weeks, England eat round 15,000 eggs, two-and-a-half tonnes of fruit, almost a tonne of potatoes and 2,500 litres of milk.
There can be scope for a extra ingenious strategy with meals preparation, with Morehen’s Instagram displaying a spread of sushi dishes given to the squad constructing as much as their departure for Japan.
When the nutritionist linked up with England in January for the primary time, he revealed that given a poor uptake in a specific complement among the many gamers, a fast bit of planning led to it being added into a much more appetising dessert. “All smashed within 10 minutes and a sign that these bad boys can be done again,” learn the accompanying caption. See for your self – you’ll be able to’t blame the gamers for getting caught in.
More particulars supplied by Morehen, who beforehand labored with the England soccer crew, embrace the quantity of protein England’s gamers tackle per day – a litre of collagen protein, and half a kilo of clear whey protein – with each varieties being good for well being and restore of the delicate tissues and integrity of muscle tissues. But the largest shift with England seems to be a brand new strategy in direction of physique composition assessments; in different phrases, measuring physique composition of gamers together with lean mass and fats mass.
Dissatisfied with the skinfolds methodology – utilizing a caliper to evaluate the skinfold thickness to then make a prediction of the overall quantity of physique fats – Morehen needed to make use of a greater methodology extra aligned to efficiency. That led to ‘Functional Mass’, aligning physique composition knowledge with efficiency knowledge.
The physique composition evaluation is carried out with a dual-energy X-ray, or DEXA, which measures bone density and can decide whether or not a participant’s physique kind makes them extra liable to damage. Ideally, it might be able to predict future damage danger by figuring out the place every participant’s physique is asymmetrical of their arms and legs.
Morehen carried out the identical research working as efficiency nutritionist with Bristol Bears, with Bristol’s gamers present process a number of DEXA scans throughout the season. Nor was that the one progressive challenge Bristol began over the past marketing campaign, with the development of a backyard at Bristol’s coaching base, impressed by an analogous challenge by Tottenham Hotspur, offering herbs, fruit and greens grown on web site for use as half of the crew’s meals preparation.
The plan is to now perform an analogous DEXA scans with England’s gamers, with members of the squad present process checks at Twickenham earlier than they headed off on tour, first to Japan and then New Zealand. The data gained from the physique assessments is then mixed with efficiency metrics, together with bounce peak and dash occasions, highlighting every gamers’ useful mass change.
During their pre-season forward of the 2023-24 marketing campaign, Bristol misplaced round 100kg in fats mass and gained 100kg in muscle mass, based on Morehen, specializing in useful positive factors reasonably than skinfold measurements – dropping useless weight and changing into extra explosive. England will now be hoping for equally spectacular outcomes.